World on Fire
by undeadboy
Summary: A young girl leaves Vault 101 on the biggest adventure of her life. My first fanfiction so please be gentle.


**Fallout 3: Fan fiction story  
By Ben Penney**

**This is my first story so please offer me constructive criticism.** **If words are in italics it means that is what the characters thoughts are.** **Enjoy!**

Chapter 1: **World on Fire**

The world as we know it has vanished... everything is gone, the Great War saw to that. All that's left is us, confined to vaults till the day we die. As the overseer says: we're born in the vault, we'll die in the vault.

My name is Serenity, I am sixteen years old and I live in vault designated 101, and this is my story.

Another boring day in the vault... lying on my bed, my eyes hurting from the vault ceiling lights, I turn my face to the right and cover my face with the soft pillow underneath my head, then I hear a voice from outside my door,

"Serenity are you awake? I need you to come into the clinic for a checkup."

It was Dad... he's a Doctor and cares for everyone in the vault when they are sick or injured.

I lie back up straight with my arm covering my eyes, and then I take a deep breath and climb off the bed.  
Walking to the wall opposite my bed, I look at myself in the mirror. Giving my long auburn hair a quick brush, my bright blue eyes reflect from the light in the mirror.

Moving over to the drawers on the wall left of me I take out my vault suit; sliding it up my thin slender body I fasten the zip with haste. Moving to the right I lean over the sink and give my face a wash. Splashing the water on my soft white skin I feel refreshed, I then dry myself with the pink towel next to me.

I walk towards the door or my room; I press the green button to open it up. The door opens but gets stuck half way through opening. This always happens, damn place is falling apart. I step back three paces and thrust my foot into the door. It opens with loud clunking sound.

I step outside my door and enter the bright living area. It is silent except for the distant humming of the vault in the background. I walk to the living room exit and click the door open. Luckily this one isn't broke.

As I exited the room I saw a yellow sticky note above the door button, it said:

_I am at the Clinic  
Dad X_

After exiting the living area, I go down the corridor to the diner, I open the door and I am suddenly greeted by Dad's work colleague Jonas.

"Good Morning." he says. I give him the same greeting and head into the Diner area.

As I am walking past the eating tables I see the head of Vault 101, The Overseer. I can see him glaring at me with his dark eyes. I look at him with disdain then make my way to the Diner's exit to head to the Clinic to see my Dad.

I exit the diner's door, and head down the interconnecting corridor that links the clinic and diner. I come to the clinic door and hold for a second, and then I buzz in on the intercom to get Dad to let me in.

"Dad it's me Serenity I have come to the Clinic like you asked.""Ok sweetheart, in you come then."  
_  
_The door opens and I step into my Dad's office. I greet my Dad with a good morning hug and kiss on the cheek.

"Good Morning Serenity I apologize for waking you this early on a Saturday, but we must give you a checkup"

I tell my Dad that it is fine and he gets everything underway for the procedure. He leads me through to the large bed area adjacent to his office and tells me to hop one of the beds and sit down. I see him head to get some things from a big cabinet on the far side of his office.

_Jeez. _I thought._ What kind things will this checkup involve? Probably just blood tests, everyone in the vault has them regularly to test for any diseases that might be leaking in from the outside world or are evolving bacterium left over from when the vault was closed.  
_

I see Dad coming back clutching a brown, leather doctors bag. He then settles the bag down on a table next to the Bed and opens it, revealing an array of medical tools.

"Ok sweetheart I am just going to be taking a blood sample won't hurt at all. Now hold your right arm out for me and clench your fist tight."

"Like this Dad?"

"Yes that's right."

I squint my eyes in response to the needle entering my arm and deep into my vein, Dad then pulls the needle up drawing blood as he goes.

"There we go all done Serenity, you alright?"

"Yeah I am fine thanks" _Although in my mind it hurt like hell._

"Right all done Serenity, you can go now."

Dad puts a small plaster on the needle's entry point. I thank my Dad and hug him goodbye, waving to him as I exit the clinic. Walking back to my room holding my arm, I hoped that I would not have to be given a blood test any time soon again.

I get to my room, the door making a noise as it opens up. I really need to get this door fixed. I will pay a visit to engineering in the morning and ask for assistance with the problem, for now I need some sleep, feeling woozy from having my blood taken.

I get into my metal framed bed, and lie down, resting my head on the soft white pillow. Closing my eyes, I instantly fall asleep.

As I am sleeping I have the weirdest dream. I hear crying from what appears to be a woman, and all I see is a bright light with drowned out voices in the background.

As I am hearing the voices grow ever so distant, I am suddenly woken by the vault alarm buzzing on and off.  
I sit up in my bed and leap out into the middle of the room, rubbing my eyes of sleep.

I walk over five paces to my bedroom entrance, pressing the button to open the still broken door. Surprisingly it opens faster than expected.

Stepping out into the corridor all that I see is chaos. The corridor is full of smoke and there are small fires protruding from the ceiling ducts and by the floor.

Turning around back into my room I look for some sort of cloth that could be used as a smoke mask. Walking over to my corner drawers I take out a white scarf that was supposedly given to me by my mother before I was to be born.  
Picking up the scarf I wrap it round the top of my neck, tying it tight at the back and then putting it over my face like a bandit balaclava.

Exiting the room for the second time, I look left and right down the corridor in quick succession and then decide to head to the infirmary to seek dad out. Walking at a fast pace I get to the end of the corridor, smoke clouding my vision as I scan around trying to see which way that I have to go.

Struggling to catch my breath I start to choke because of the smoke. I start coughing and then fall back hitting the wall, leaning over with my back against it.

As it feels that I am going to pass out I hear a familiar voice.

"Serenity! Serenity where are you"

It was Amata, my best friend here in the vault. I shout out that I can hear her voice and that she is near me.

"Serenity stay where you are I am coming for you."

Falling to the floor the smoke burns my eyes and my throat feels extremely tight. Then I see a faint figure running through the smoke.

"Serenity there you are, here take my hand and let me put this oxygen mask on your head."

Putting my arm around her shoulders she grabs the mask and puts the straps over the back of my head, Positioning the mask in the center of my face.

"Ok I am switching the mask on now you should be able to breath properly now".

I breathe in the rich oxygen that the mask provides and my throat clears and my eyes stop burning.

"Thanks Amata"

"No problem, c'mon we need to get to safety, I will take you to the infirmary so we can look for your dad".

I and Amata get to the infirmary; she presses the door button, as the metal door rises from the floor we are suddenly greeted by a torrent of smoke. We head on through the veil and see that the whole clinic is deserted.

_Damn it._ I told myself.

"Where's Dad?" I asked Amata.

I tell Amata that I am able to walk now and I walk on through the clinic more. As I get by my dad's office I suddenly see a shadow on the floor, it was Jonas!

"Oh my god what the hell happened to him?"

"Looks like he has been beaten to death." I replied with severe anxiety and sadness.

"Look Serenity your dad's not here, we need to get out of here now."

"I can't just leave him here…"

"You have to Serenity, now follow me"

"Ok." I reply with sadness. Before I leave Jonas's body I notice a holotape next to his body, I grab it with curiosity and put it in my vault suit pocket. I then leave the clinic with Amata leaving my friend Jonas lying on the floor still like a statue.

Running out of the room me and Amata head down the corridor. We run to the overseer's office and open the big metal door.  
We step inside and shut the door behind us, overriding the door as we proceed to the computer terminal behind the overseer's desk.

I turn on the terminal monitor, a small beeping sounds follows. Amata tells me that we need the password for the terminal to access it or we will have to hack the terminal.

"Hey maybe my dad has his password stored somewhere in the room Serenity?"

I nod in agreement to her statement and we both start scouring the room for the terminal password.  
Looking around the room I can see only one place where the password might be kept, the cupboard in the corner of the room.  
It was worth a try, I tell Amata and we both open the metallic cupboard.

The doors open with a small creak; both I and Amata look inside, moving junk aside as we search franticly. In a small bag pocket I find a holotape.

"This must be my fathers password." Agreeing with her we return to the terminal eager to access it and open the secret tunnel that supposedly leads out of the vault. I input the password with haste and the terminal accepts the input and loads the data that is held there.

"Ok, there is the tunnel access"

Amata points at the bottom of the screen where the text shows open overseer's tunnel. Before I hit enter on the keyboard I notice a few documents that are labeled exploration dates and some data on several vault residents. I decide to stash this data to read it later on.

As I hit enter on the keyboard a sound like a pipe letting out steam is heard, me and Amata both look around and see the overseer's desk and chair raise to the ceiling revealing a set of stairs.

"Ok let's go Serenity"

We both run down the gray solid stairs and exit through the heavy steel door. As we get to the other side of the door we see several radroaches start to make there way towards us. We run round them not wasting anytime to get to the vault door.

Proceeding ahead we come to what seemed like a bulkhead door. The bulkhead must have weighed at least 20 tones. I press the activation switch on the right handside of the bulkhead. The big bulky concrete piece rose up we then proceeded through to the main entrance.

"My god I can't believe we made it. Quick, open up the vault door and you can get out of here"

I go the vault door console and pull the lever down. An alarm sounds and from the ceiling a big metallic drill like device descends and moves to the massive vault door and inserts itself into the round slot, the vault door then slowly with a grinding noise moves out then goes right revealing a brown dusty exit.

I turn back to Amata and look at her with confusion.

"What do you mean just me get out of here? Aren't you coming with me?"

"Look I wanted to make sure you got out safely, my place is here with the vault, I am the only person my father will listen to so I need to stay here to make sure things do not decent into chaos. I am here for you always Serenity, you are my best friend, now get out of here and good luck"

I hug Amata tightly, closing my eyes as I whisper in her ear.

"I will return one day, I promise." With that I turn around and run out of the vault I have lived in my whole life. I get to the final door of the vault that leads to the outside world, it is wooden and bright light peaks through the cracks. I brace myself with a deep breath then I grab the rotted handle of the door and open it up slowly.


End file.
